Oct 18, 2009 3 min read

CALIFORNIA – The Vulcans scored 35 unanswered points en route to a 38-14 win over Edinboro University in PSAC-West action Saturday at Adamson Stadium. The Vulcans’ victory was the 200th in the coaching career of John Luckhardt.

“I’m not trying to be evasive about it, but we started out so rocky the early part of the season that I wasn’t thinking about it,” Luckhardt said. “We have been taking it one week at a time. I was hoping after looking over our personnel that we could reach the 200 mark.”

Luckhardt, who is 63-26 in eight years with California, is the sixth active coach in the NCAA Division II with 200 wins in a career.

The win was also California’s 18th straight win over a PSAC Western Division foe, and since the 2006 campaign, the Vulcans have went 31-4 in regular season action.

California (6-2, 5-0) had the early momentum against Edinboro (6-2, 4-1) as quarterback Josh Portis connected with AJ Jackson for 50 yards on the Vulcans’ first offensive play.

Despite the big play, the Vulcans were held to a 20-yard field goal by Marc Domonkos.

The Fighting Scots battled back as they took the lead on its next drive when Trevor Harris hooked up with tight end Shawn Walker for a 17-yard pass play at 4:31 mark of the opening quarter.

On the next possession, Edinboro put together an 11 play, 79-yard drive that culminated with a 15-yard touchdown pass from Harris to Marcus Johnson.

California came back near the end of the second quarter and put together an 11-play drive of its’ own, going 93 yards and chewing up 4:47 that ended with a nine-yard run by Portis as the Vulcans were down 14-10 at halftime.

Windell Brown, who had a career high 148 yards on 21 carries, roamed wild in the third quarter and scored on runs of 19 and 20 yards to put the Vulcans up 24-14 at the end of the quarter.

“I felt really good on my ankle today,” Brown said. “I got a lot of carries today and was in the flow of things. I definitely needed a game like this. If we can run the ball effectively, I think it makes us more balance and that will help the passing game too.”

The Vulcans put the game out of reach in the fourth quarter with two more touchdowns.

“We were down at half, and our coaches did a great job of making adjustments and identifying what they were doing to cause our problems,” Luckhardt said. “We were able to run the ball on them and control the time of possession. If you can draw up a second half, then this would be it for us.”

Portis totaled 177 yards through the air and 81 yards via the run game.

“Josh has had a rocky start to this season,” Luckhardt said. “He has been in like three or four different offenses the past couple of years and he had to adjust his style to those schemes. This year, he has continued getting better and has made the big throws. He has the statistics and he was able to hit the open receivers late in the game.”

California’s defense garnered two sacks on Harris, a four-year starter, and contained him much of the day and held the Fighting Scots to 59 yards rushing.